Snapchat, after teasing it at last year’s Partner Summit, has finally launched its long awaited feature-App Stories, allowing Snapchat users to post their Snap stories to 3rd party apps.
The feature has been unveiled for 4 apps as of yet: Triller, Squad, Hily, and Octi. However, other apps can add to this list very soon, including Tinder and Houseparty, over which the feature was teased at last year’s Partner Summit. It is still unclear when these apps will get the feature.
The feature will allow users of these 4 apps to post their Snapchat stories on their accounts, that is, pictures that have been clicked by Snapchat’s camera. Moreover, they will preserve all the edits made on these pictures, including filters and drawings.
For example, Triller, a music video app, will allow users to view stories from the artists they follow, while people using the dating app Hily will be able to incorporate Snapchat stories in the already existing ‘Story’ feature on the app. Squad, a video calling app, will allow users to view stories together while on video calls, and augmented reality app Octi will allow users to post stories on their profile.
Snapchat’s VP of partnerships Ben Schwerin said,”This gives people even more reasons to use the Snapchat camera to create and it also opens up our content to potentially new audiences.”
While the time limit on Snap stories is set to 24 hours, after which the stories are lost, App Stories can stay alive for a period of 7 days, easing the pressure on users to post stories all the time to keep their profiles on dating and other platforms alive.
According to TechCrunch, Schwerin believes that there is an opportunity to monetise on App Stories, but that is way off in the future. As of yet, App Stories will serve the purpose of keeping Snapchat still relevant, as other apps like Instagram and Facebook have knocked the ‘Story’ feature with considerable success, thus increasing pressure on the company. App stories will also help bring traffic to the platform as users continue to spend clicks on these stories.
